Blake woke with a start the next morning, blinking wearily as she tried to remember where she was, as she quickly realized this wasn't her apartment. It took a few minutes for her to recall that she had helped home a pair of girls the previous night, and then had been offered to stay instead of making her way home in the dark.
Lifting herself up, the black-haired girl took a look around the room for any signs of her hostess, but couldn't see Ruby anywhere, the bed was made neatly, the curtains were still drawn (and she had to wonder if the girl had left them shut for her sake), and the apartment appeared to be silent.
Shrugging as she decided to just get up, knowing that once she was awake it was almost impossible for the girl to get back to sleep, she carefully sat up and stretched, sighing as she heard her bones cracking as they got used to movement again, before her head snapped over to the door at the sound of it being opened as quietly as the intruder could manage.
The girl had to do a double-take when she realized it was Ruby standing in the doorway with a sheepish smile on her face, but it wasn't the girl's sudden appearance herself that surprised her impromptu guest, but what the girl was wearing.
Ruby offered Blake a nervous laugh as she rubbed the back of her head in embarrassment, just standing there and allowing the older girl to take in her outfit in all it's glory.
The young girl was wearing what appeared to be, as far as Blake could tell, a black-and-white maid's uniform, with a pair of black flats on her feet, and her hair carefully brushed out as best the girl could manage, making the older girl believe this was an entirely different person from the girl she met last night.
"Ah, sorry Blake, I didn't wake you up with all of my moving around, did I?" Ruby asked, finally giving away the reason for her nervousness, making the corners of Blake's mouth rise in a small smile at the girl's consideration, so she shook her head in the negative.
"No Ruby, I just woke up, and I didn't even hear you moving around. By the way, you look pretty good in that outfit, what's the occasion?" The black haired girl asked as she lifted herself up to her feet, and began to clean up after herself, rolling up the blanket around her pillow as she faced away from the younger girl, not catching the way the girl's cheeks lit up with a hint of red at the compliment.
"Oh this?" She overheard Ruby say, "It's kind of my uniform at work, and the manager is very strict about our outfits, she's always going on about "showing the proper image."
"She sounds like a high society girl," Blake murmured, making Ruby chuckle as the older girl put her things against the nearby dresser, before turning on her heels to face Ruby once more, "so you have to go to work then?"
"Yeah, I wouldn't have even gone out with Yang last night if she hadn't told me she had gotten us a gig," Ruby admitted, "our boss always wants us to be well rested for our shifts, so we don't end up making any mistakes."
"Would you mind at all if I walked with you?" Blake asked, "I really should be getting back to my apartment, and I don't want to impose on you any more than I have already."
"Oh it's no problem at all Blake," Ruby replied cheerfully, her face lighting up and making the older girl chuckle, "The diner is downtown anyways, so it's probably not far from your apartment, and this way I can repay you with some breakfast."
"I really wouldn't want to inconvenience you or anything, especially if your workplace is busy," Blake tried to back pedal, always feeling a little guilty for bothering what seemed to be such a kind girl.
"Nonsense, c'mon," Ruby encouraged, gesturing for Blake to follow her out into the kitchen, where she began to dig around for a pad of paper and pen, before jotting down a quick note for her sister and leaving it next to the coffee maker. Noting Blake's confused look, Ruby explained herself, "I know how Yang is after a night of drinking, and the first thing she's going to be looking for is a cup of coffee, so I always leave my notes next to or taped to it so I'm sure that she'll see it."
"Your sister doesn't know what hours you work?" Blake asked, following Ruby out into the hallway so she could lock up the apartment before the two began to make a casual pace down the hall towards the nearest elevator.
"Yang can sometimes be a bit scatterbrained, and after she's been drinking she tends to forget a lot of things at first, so it always pays for me to leave notes around for her just to make sure she's kept up to speed," Ruby explained, "I love my sister dearly, but some of her worse traits drive me crazy."
"I've heard that about a lot of siblings before, but I wouldn't know about it, all I have is a room mate who I hardly see because he's always out at animal rights movements," Blake replied as the elevator arrived, and the two boarded it.
Just before the doors could close completely, a girl with bright pink hair came barrelling out of a nearby apartment with a loud cry for them to wait, and Ruby showed off her quick reflexes by holding the doors open, giving the other girl enough time to get on board with the pair. Ruby sighed in exasperation as she looked at the pink-haired girl, who was bent over gasping for air before beginning to reprimand her, "geez Nora, why don't you ever set your alarm clock earlier, It's any wonder Weiss is always threatening to write you up."
"Nonsense Ruby!" The girl said, perking up with a snap as she stood straight, allowing Blake to see that she was also wearing one of the customized maid uniforms, meaning she was one of the girl's coworkers, "If anything it gives Ren and I something to talk about during the day when there's no one in the diner, and I know he would never let me miss work."
"Your faith in Ren's abilities never cease to amaze me Nora, but you really should be more responsible for yourself," Ruby commented, before remembering the other girl in the elevator with them, and gestured to Blake for Nora's sake, "oh by the way Nora, this is Blake, she helped me drag Yang home last night after our gig."
Blake grew nervous as she noticed Nora get uncomfortably close to her, and begin to inspect her, like she was just looking for something wrong with the girl so she could dismiss her. Thankfully she finally stepped back, and put her hands on her hips with a wide grin, before speaking up to the black-haired girl, "hiya Blake, nice to meet'cha!"
"Likewise," Blake replied with a nervous chuckle, looking at Ruby out of the corner of her eyes in an attempt to ask for help from the younger girl, feeling completely uncomfortable under this strange girl's gaze.
"Oh don't mind her Blake," Ruby tried to console the girl, "Nora is just a bit overprotective, and was trying to make sure you weren't going to be a problem for Yang and I," she explained.
"Yeah, just remember Blakey, if you do anything to hurt Yang and little Ruby here, I'll find where you live and break your legs," if she wasn't uncomfortable before, Blake was nearly hyperventilating from the threat, especially with the way the girl was smiling brightly as she announced her intentions, and the way Ruby was laughing nervously in the background.
"I'll...try to keep that in mind," Blake assured Nora, trying hard to remain calm despite all of her instincts telling her to get far away from this girl.
Finally the elevator arrived at the ground floor, and the three girls disembarked, Blake thankful for being able to get a little space between her and Nora, trying to shift around so that Ruby was between her and the pink monster as the three stepped out into the street, giving Blake her first look at the place where the girls were living.
She had to quickly admit, it didn't seem like a great place for two teenage girls to live, as the cars all looked relatively run down with mismatched parts, there was trash lining the alleyways, and most of the people seemed to keep to themselves, or offer dark glares at one another, making Blake's skin crawl slightly.
"You and your sister live here? This place is basically the slums of the city, how can you not afford a better place?" The girl was quick to ask, as the three made their way downtown.
She noticed Ruby flinch at the question and cursed herself for touching on a sensitive topic, but before she could try to fix her mistake Ruby began to explain herself without any more coercion, "We don't make a lot of money since Yang can't hold a job and I'm only able to work at the diner because of my age we can't really afford anything better than this."
Blake wanted to ask why her parents didn't contribute anything to the two girls, but thought better of it as she noticed Nora shoot her a glare that looked rather natural on her face over Ruby's shoulder, so the younger girl wouldn't catch sight of it before she spoke up, "Yeah, but we all try our best to look out for each other around here. Pyrrha makes sure we don't get into trouble, Ren is always around to be our voice of reason, and even Weiss, who knows about our situations, tries not to be too hard on us."
"What about things like school?" The older girl asked after wracking her brain for a few minutes trying to think of anything she could say that wouldn't be invading the girls privacy, "Shouldn't you be in high school right now Ruby?"
Nora's hands rested on Ruby's shoulders as the pink-haired girl answered for her, "they can't afford it right now since Ruby works as much as she can to keep them afloat, but Pyrrha teaches her everything she needs to know at her level."
"It sounds like you've at least worked out a system," Blake admitted, though in her mind more worries were cropping up about the situation of these girls, and she wondered if there might be a way for her to offer some assistance to them even as they finally seemed to leave the slums and enter the main streets of Vale.
"Well it's not absolutely perfect, but I've got enough of an education so far to work at the diner and appease Weiss, but it would be nice if we could get more high-paying gigs and maybe move into a better building," Ruby admitted sheepishly before sighing as the three approached the girl's workplace.
Blake found herself staring at the diner, not noticing the way the two girls began to tug on her arms to try and get her moving again, "c'mon Blakey, Weiss tends to get a bit annoyed if we're late," Nora urged.
"You two work at the white castle?" She asked incredulously, having heard rumours about this place that made her skin crawl slightly, and knew that if her room mate found out she had come here that he would throw a fit.
"Yeah, Weiss knows us, so when her father handed over the place to her she was quick to hire both of us as well as a couple of our friends to fill out her staff and help us with our situations," Ruby explained, "her dad took a lot of his employees with him when he handed the diner over, so she was really hurting for employees."
"Which means that the owner of this place is..." Blake began, as the two girls managed to pull her bodily through the double-doors into the diner, where their boss was lying in wait for them.
"Ruby! Nora! You both are late again, didn't you tell me that you would be on time today after the last time you showed up late," Weiss Schnee reprimanded the pair, who at least looked sheepish for not showing up on time.
Managing to recover after coming face to face with the heiress of the Schnee electric company, Blake stepped forward to defend her new friends, "It's really not their fault Ms. Schnee, Ruby had to wait for me this morning after I helped her out with her older sister last night, and Nora met us on the elevator down from their apartment," She summarized.
She took a step back as a pair of sharp blue eyes rounded on her, though she was thankful the girl's sharp glare softened for a moment, "and you are?" She asked in a snippy tone.
"Blake Belladonna," She introduced, "Ruby and Yang had a performance at a club I went to last night, and I had to help her bring Yang home after she drank too much. Ruby insisted I come with her this morning so she could repay me for helping out."
Blake sighed in relief as the white-haired girl backed off, and her eyes softened as a small smile tugged at the corner of her lips, before she turned away from the group and began to head to the back of the building through a door labelled employees only, offering over her shoulder, "that's okay then I suppose, but Ruby, I want to hear about how your performance went during your break," before the heiress disappeared from view.
The black-haired girl was surprised when both of her friends breathed a sigh of relief once Weiss disappeared into the back, and gave them a questioning look, "Weiss really could have chewed us out for being late, even if it was only by a couple of minutes. That girl takes the phrase "time is money" to a whole other level," Ruby explained.
"You know she means well though, and that you really should both be more responsible and show up a little bit before your shifts start," another voice, this one obviously male, spoke up from the small window Blake could only guess led back to the kitchen, where a black-haired boy stood with a calm smile on his face. A second glance confirmed that he had a single streak of pink in his hair, making Blake's eyebrows rise in confusion.
"Ren!" Nora cried, and dashed off through another door meant to be used only by employees, before the boy disappeared from view after being tackled by a pink blur. Ruby chuckled beside the girl as they watched the pairs antics as she explained, "Nora and Ren are childhood friends, and she's rather affectionate with him."
"Are those two in a relationship?" Blake asked, but was surprised that Ruby shook her head in the negative, "Nora says that she isn't looking for a relationship right now, and it seems like Ren is perfectly content being her best friend and cuddle partner, but I think it's more that they don't want to ruin the close bond that they've shared for so long by trying to date each other."
"How sweet," Blake commented quietly, and noticed that Ruby heard her when the smaller black-haired girl nodded her head in agreement before adding, "besides, any guy Nora dated would have to worry about serious injury if they broke her heart, and then whatever Ren and Yang would do to what was left."
That got Blake to laugh, as she noticed Ruby gesturing her over to a seat by the window. Doing as told, the girl took the offered seat, before Ruby seemed to withdraw a notepad from a pocket sewn into her skirt, and took up a professional waitress' pose, holding the notepad and pen in front of her, "now, what would you like for breakfast? Don't worry, Ren is a culinary master, and can probably make just about anything you could want."
"That's really okay Ruby, I'm not even feeling all that hungry," Blake tried to argue, but her traitorous stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, making her blush. She thought she could hear the best friends laughing from the kitchen, and Ruby tried to stifle her own laughter while she kept up her air of professionalism.
"Fine then, I'd kill for a cup of coffee, some waffles, and maybe some eggs, sunny-side up, please," Blake finally gave in, slumping down in her seat and cursing out her stomach in her head, noticing out of the corner of her eyes the way Ruby's face seemed to light up at her order.
"Ooh, you're in for a treat Blake, Ren makes the best eggs and coffee in the whole city!" Ruby gushed, before writing down the older girl's order and heading behind the main counter in the room, and passing back the order into the kitchen, where Ren calmly picked it up and began to work.
Given a chance to think in silence at last, it was only now that Blake noticed how quiet the diner seemed to be at this time of day, and grew slightly worried that perhaps this place didn't see many customers, even though it was owned by the Schnee heiress, who had probably been trained in business for years.
She was thankfully proven wrong, and her concerns were put to rest for now, as a tall, gangly blonde-haired boy wearing a blue jacket came wandering into the diner, and had to cover her mouth to hide her giggles as Ruby's face lit up again, making her question if perhaps there was something going on between these two.
"Hey Jaune, just got out of classes I take it?" Ruby asked, leaning forward on the counter and trying to show an easygoing grin at the boy, who returned it with one of his own as he stopped in front of the girl.
"Hi Ruby, and yeah, I don't have to be back for my next lessons for a while yet, so I figured I could stop in and grab a bite, since I uhh, kind of missed breakfast again," he replied with a sheepish laugh, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.
From the back, Blake thought she could hear Nora groaning about something, but brushed it off for the moment as she continued to watch the two teens talk, as this Jaune boy placed his order and Ruby was quick to deliver it to their cook, before they simply started to shoot the breeze.
She grew slightly nervous as Ruby suddenly pointed her out to the boy, and he grinned at her before they began to talk again, both stopping a moment to laugh about something the younger girl had said.
It came as a shock when her order appeared in front of her without any warning, and when she looked up she found Nora standing there with a silly grin on her face, expertly balancing a plate with eggs and a cup of coffee on her arm, as she simply watched her keeping an eye on the friends.
"Oh yeah that's Jaune, he's kind of like Ruby's best friend, even though he's two years her senior," Nora explained for the black-haired girl's sake, "I think if I remember right they met back when the sisters first moved here, and he's always been there for her, kind of like her older brother figure."
"Really, I thought they might have been dating or something," Blake admitted, but jumped as Nora suddenly laughed aloud, catching the attention of the pair over at the counter. Waving off their concerns, the girl lowered her voice before replying, "hah, Ruby and Jaune, that would never work out, trust me, I can see good relationships."
"And what makes you say that?" The black-haired girl asked, feeling as though it was mandatory, and noticed the gleam of mischief in Nora's eyes before she turned to the pair, "hey Ruby, what do you think of dating Jauney-boy there?" She suddenly shouted, catching the attention of everyone in the diner.
Blake's eyes widened as Ruby gave an exaggerated sound of disgust before replying to the pink-haired girl, "eww Nora, that would be like dating my older brother, do you know how wrong that sounds?" She shouted at the girl.
"Besides that," Jaune spoke up, sounding nervous, "we all know that Ruby has her eyes set on someone else, and so do I," he pointed out, making Blake even more curious as she caught the way Nora smiled at the pair.
"That's all I needed to hear, thanks guys, you can go back to your talk now," Nora waved the pair off, who both shrugged and did as they were told, Ruby laughing at something Jaune said that was followed with a shrug.
"See, those two would never consider dating each other any more than Ren and I would," Nora told the girl, before grinning at her, "now stop thinking so hard and eat your food, Ren worked really hard on these for you in commemoration of you being Ruby's newest friend, so don't make it go to waste by letting it get cold on us," The pink-haired girl chastised her gently.
"Yes, thank you for delivering this stuff to me Nora, I'll be sure to tell Ren what I thought of it before I leave," Blake promised, looking down at her food in an attempt to hide her reddening cheeks, having to admit it felt a little strange to be treated like this by someone she barely even knew, and for that person to be so open with her, even after her earlier threat.
Nora smiled before walking over to the pair at the counter, and seemed to join in on their conversation, leaving the black-haired girl to her breakfast in peace, though her attention was occasionally taken away as she heard one of the three laugh, even able to overhear Ren offering input from the kitchen.
Unaware of how much time had passed as she worked away on her meal, Blake was slightly surprised when Ruby dropped into the seat across from her, and all of the chatter around the previously barren diner, before the black-haired girl spoke up, "whew, it always gets so busy around this time of day, too bad Weiss is picky about who she hires."
"Should she really be so stingy for such a small place as this?" Blake asked, but upon looking around she realized every table in the building was now filled up with teenagers of varying ages, as well as the occasional adult and child, and only just caught Ruby laughing.
"This would be the lunch rush, and sometimes it's busier than today as well," Ruby admitted, "It might not have looked like it when we came in this morning, but Weiss really does know how to run a business like this, and the diner is quite popular, it's just that like most places it kind of has it's own flow of customers coming in and out at all hours."
Starting to realize just how late it was getting, Blake lifted herself up, giving Ruby a small smile as she followed the girl over to the counter, "well I have to admit, your service, cooking, and atmosphere is rather good, especially for a place owned by the Schnee corporation," the girl listed off.
"Weiss would never have anything less, she's a bit of a perfectionist like that," Ruby replied with a laugh, before she caught sight of her boss looking at her, the white-haired girl already behind the counter waiting for her.
"What was that Ruby Rose?" The girl asked, tapping her fingers on her crossed arms and looking unimpressed with the girl's comment, making the younger girl laugh nervously and try to back away. Unfortunately she had no chance to escape as the older girl grabbed her arm and practically dragged her into the back, and Blake winced as she hoped Ruby wasn't going to be yelled at too badly, even as Nora popped up behind the counter and prepared to ring her up.
"Don't worry about paying, actually, Ruby said it was her treat, so all we really need is to hear about what you thought of Ren's cooking," the pink-haired girl explained with a bright grin that caught Blake slightly off-guard. She had to wonder if Nora had any other setting than cheerful, but had to admit it fit a waitress to a T.
"It was very good, my compliments to the chef of course, I'd love to come back here once in a while for lunch," Blake answered honestly, able to see the black-haired boy in the kitchen listening in on their conversation, and smiled as she knew he had heard her glowing review.
"That's good to hear, since Ren is going to school learning about the culinary arts," Nora explained, "but between you and me, I think that he could already leave this place and open up his own restaurant, he's that good. Of course he'd bring me along to be co-manager, or maybe one of the waitresses there, and then I would just have to bring Ruby along," The girl began to daydream idly, and Blake took this as her chance to sneak away, while everyone was distracted.
As she stepped back out onto the street, the black-haired girl had to breathe a sigh of relief, feeling slightly overwhelmed by everything she had learned recently, from the strange siblings she had helped out of trouble last night, and all of their eccentric friends. It left her head spinning thinking about all of them and their colourful personalities.
Just before she got the chance to walk off and head back to her apartment, she was stopped by a familiar red-haired girl, who appeared to have been coming to the diner, "oh hello again miss Belladonna, it's nice to see you here," Pyrrha greeted the girl.
"Nice to see you Pyrrha, and please, you can just call me Blake, I don't see why we have to be formal with each other," The black-haired girl insisted with a small smile. She liked Pyrrha's personality so far, she wasn't scary like Nora could be, or imposing like Weiss, she just seemed to be very kind and motherly, and Blake wondered if she filled in as the mother figure in Ruby's life, in the same way Nora had likened Jaune to her brother.
"Oh, of course Blake," Pyrrha corrected herself, "I see you were just leaving the diner, did you get a chance to meet everyone?"
"Yes, Weiss, Ren, Nora, and that Jaune boy, they all seemed like pretty nice people," Blake admitted, though she withheld some of her thoughts about them from the girl, since she didn't want Pyrrha to think any less of her or insult the girl.
"Well I'm actually late to start my shift, so I ought to be getting inside before Weiss finishes with Ruby," Pyrrha said, and it was only then that Blake noticed the girl was wearing the same uniform that Ruby and Nora were wearing, and cursed to herself about not noticing sooner.
"I'll let you get to it then, but don't work too hard, and don't let those girls do anything too silly Pyrrha," Blake ordered, wagging her finger at the much taller girl jokingly, making the other girl chuckle.
"I do hope to see you around Blake, it seems as though Ruby has grown to like you, which is surprising. She doesn't usually open up to strangers this quickly, and I'd hate for you to hurt her," Pyrrha's voice seemed to darken slightly at the end of her sentence, making Blake's skin crawl. It was rather similar to Nora's earlier threat, but much better disguised, and unexpected coming from such a nice girl.
"I'll try to keep Ruby's feelings in mind, and I'll do my best not to hurt her," Blake was quick to try and appease the taller girl with a nervous laugh, sighing in relief when Pyrrha smiled down at her before turning and walking into the diner, leaving just the black-haired girl on the sidewalk,.
Before she left, Blake caught sight of Ruby streaking out from the back room, with Weiss following at a sedated pace, to pull the much taller red-haired girl into a surprise hug, which the older girl happily returned, making Blake curious if perhaps there was something she was missing about all of these new people she had met, but brushed it off for now.
She determined she could only take so much of these people at a time, and she was all but drained for now, so instead she opted to head back to her apartment, and perhaps pick out a nice book to read while she waited to hear anything from her room mate.
X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X
So yeah, it seems like right now a lot of people are wanting Ruby X Pyrrha, or rather none of the more common pairings, and so far I'd be more than happy to deliver.
I've been trying to plan out a Ruby X Pyrrha story for a while now, but I could never create good formula for it that I was happy with, so maybe I'll find a way to work it into that in time. I'm not completely sold on the pairings yet though, so if anyone has any suggestions or preferred pairings, keep sending them in and we'll see where we go from there.
I can say with some certainty that right now I don't feel like I'm going to settle with any of the common pairings like Ruby X Weiss or Blake X Yang, but I may tease you guys with a few hints of one-sided pairings later in the story.
It largely depends on where I get the story going from here, so we'll all just have to wait and see as time goes on.
And might I say, it feels great to be back in the fan fiction community again, hopefully now that I've gotten started once more, I can get my productivity up, and start publishing a few of the ideas that I've had floating around in my hard drive, including a few new RWBY stories and some rewrites that I've been tinkering with.
Until then, ja ne!